The Constitution Amendment Bill, 2019, for granting 10 per cent quota in government jobs and educational institutions to the poor in general category on Wednesday cleared the Rajya Sabha hurdle, where the opposition parties voted in its favour, despite slamming the government for ‘bypassing legislative scrutiny’ and not giving adequate time to discuss the matter.

If the Bill does not face any judicial hurdle — the proposed 10 per cent quota exceeds the Supreme Court’s cap on 50 per cent reservation —and manages to get Presidential assent, Articles 15 (Prohibition of discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth) and 16 (Equality of opportunity in matters of public employment) of the Constitution will stand amended.

Though after passage in both the Houses, Constitutional amendment bills are sent for ratification by at least 50 per cent of the states, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley told the Upper House on Wednesday that this Bill does not need to be sent to the states.

According to sources, as the Bill is an extension of reservation to non-SC and non-OBC poor, which is not listed in Article 368 (2), it doesn’t need ratification from the states, but might still face judicial scrutiny if anyone approaches the apex court.

The Rajya Sabha, which didn’t function smoothly in the past week, had a long last day of the Winter Session as members from the opposition took on the Narendra Modi government for introducing the Bill in haste.

Except AIADMK, all Opposition parties supported the Bill, while pointing out flaws in it. As most leaders began their speeches by backing the Bill and went on to change the tenor with a ‘but’, Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad joked, “Today everyone seems to be agreeing but stressing on the word ‘lekin’…”

The opposition parties, which had met earlier in the day to decide on the floor strategy unitedly, sought a Joint Parliamentary Committee to examine the Bill. The demand remained unmet.

Opposition leaders alleged that the move was a poll gimmick by the BJP that wants to win back its lost vote bank. Congress MP Kumari Selja said “this is not reservation, this is self-preservation”, while TMC MP Derek O’Brien alleged that like “Start-up India, Skill India, Make in India, all of which is Cheat India, this is yet another dhoka with the people of the country”. “We are not members of the gymkhana club of Ahmedabad-…What are you doing to this Parliament? Previous government used to send 65 to 70 per cent bills for scrutiny. This time, not even 20 per cent have been sent…14 new bills were introduced, only one went for scrutiny,” he said.

Congress MP Kapil Sibal went on to cite figures to show that at a time when there is a serious dearth of jobs, the Bill would end up reserving only 4,500 jobs for lakhs of applicants. “You amended the Constitution but is it backed by any data? How did you decide on the Rs 8 lakh per annum income criteria? If that is poverty line, then why do you charge income tax on Rs. 2.5 lakh?” he said.

Responding to repeated questions on why the Bill was brought in on the last working day of the session, Prasad said that the Prime Minister had delivered a sixer in the last ball and several such sixers will keep coming. “If you didn’t bring it on time and even if we brought it late, at least we showed the courage,” he said. BSP MP Satish Chandra Misra retorted that the sixer might not even go out of the boundary, suggesting that the Bill might not help BJP come back to power.

The 10 per cent quota for the poor among the upper castes is a historic step